"GOD AND MAN'S WAGES"

"I have been sent into your presence to speak to you on that which I name: 'God and Man's Wages'. Today there is much taught about recompense, and the world, it seems to you, is filled with tumult – man warring against man, seeking to cut into family life, to destroy friendship and comradeship, to bring into this happy land of yours that discord which inevitably must produce a black harvest.

"There are some who argue this and others who acclaim that, but we will think upon wages on a higher plane of thought. And I want, if I can, to give a little explanation about that beautiful story in the Holy Book when the householder and his vineyard was likened unto Heaven.

"You will remember how the story goes: that the Lord of the vineyard engaged at certain times of the day different labourers, and he stipulated that they should work for that which he was prepared to give; and at the close of the day the ones who had toiled from dawn demurred because those who had worked but an hour or two received the same wages.

"Over the generations, dear children, that story has roused a certain amount of criticism. Viewing it from the purely surface side it sounds unfair, but the one who chronicled it had not the deep understanding to pass on the Master's meaning, and so today, by Divine Grace, I want to expand your imagination in regard to that parable, as to its meaning for you and for the world at large.

"The recompense which God gives in sweet equality to all His children is the gift of Eternal Life, and the point is this: There are those who desecrate their lives and the vehicle of flesh, there are many who spurn everything that relates to Divine Law, and yet, dear children, their wages from God are precisely the same as the faithful worker – they are given the gift of Eternal Life.

"Let us analyse the story a little further and we shall find that there is no mention of anything beyond the actual wage which was given to one and all in the same degree. I ask you to consider this point in regard to physical life; there are those who live upon the earth plane until old age is reached, there are others who stay but a year or two and then pass into another state, and there are those who toil only to get personal power, but they are all given the same wages by their Lord - Life Everlasting - and they all have the same degree of Divinity within them. That is but one aspect.

"Then we think of the workers in spiritual employment. There are those who over the years have had their churches or have acted as ministers representing the Christ, but you know, dear children, it is not the number of years a man or a woman may acclaim Christ, but the degree of the sacrifice which has been forthcoming during them. And may it not be that one who has come into the Light of active service but a short span has, during that short span, done more than the one who has acclaimed himself a Christian worker over the many years of his earthly life? You know that all who claim the Name of Christ are not Christians. You know also that all those who are supposed to represent the Master in their churches and chapels and temples do not represent the Master: they represent something built up by generations of earthly authority and personal pride.

"So it is quite logical to say that men and women who in the past had no opportunity of working directly for God, sometimes in a very short time accomplish more than those who have named themselves Christians over the years, and thus the 'first shall be last and the last shall be first.'

"I want you in thinking of this parable to apply it to the things of daily life. No story in the Bible would have been worth chronicling if it did not concern you today as much as it concerned those of two thousand years ago. The religion of the Christ is essentially a modern religion; it is only some, blinded by their own conceit, who feel that it is old-fashioned and they want a new cult, something that shall allow their imagination greater exercise and their powers fuller expression. These are the blind and the lame, the ones who are deaf to the Spirit of God which is speaking through human life, through Nature, aye, even through dumb animals.

"Take, for instance, material wages. You know it is not always the best workers who gain the most. Very often it is the man who steals his employer's time who makes the biggest success of human life; he has learnt how to be clever, how to defy certain laws which govern employment and to safeguard himself so that there is no redress from those he has cheated. What are his wages? Some may say: 'A comfortable life, the things he craves for most, he has a 'position' - whatever that may mean.

"But the wages of God are not touched by man's defiance of Divine Law, and he, too, has the gift of Immortal Life and also he can continue to exercise free-will. Yet is it not true that the wages of sin is death - the death of idealism, of real happiness, certainly of progression? The God or Christ within man is in fetters, there has been a dying away of those holy qualities which mark man from the beast, there has been so great a thwarting of the Spirit's desires that they seem to exist no more; physical life itself symbolises death.

"But you know, dear children, that there is no death, it is only sleeping, and such as these must awaken, however much they cling to the thought that after the physical stage life is finished, and their awakening should indeed wring your hearts with pity, for they are forced to witness that which they have done.

"God does not punish, God gives to each and everyone, however much the individual may hate Him, the same unlimited love, the same wide resources to obtain freedom, the same sweet inclusive gifts; but the difference is this: man, through erecting his own prison, cannot see and cannot catch those beautiful things which might have been his own. Feebly through the darkness he peers, with a trembling hand desiring to find the strength to tear out the bars so that freedom might be his own. But where is his strength? He finds his body of flesh is no more, his cunning, clever mind has been laid aside; rather he represents an imbecile with no vitality at all; and there in his self-appointed tomb he lies until, by suffering, something of strength in a spiritual sense is made his own.

"There are those who complain of injustice, many who point to illustrations upon the earth plane of God being defied and man scoring over his Creator; but how long do these things last, and what of the future?

"I ask you, dear children, as you pass among those materially minded, to seek to open the gate which has shut them in, for physical consciousness alone has been exercised by them here and now; but Divine Justice never wavers. The frail and the sick are pushed to the wall or are trampled upon, and the old, who have been faithful workers, fear the dark cavern of poverty. But slowly public conscience is awakening. God's Hand has been shown by the compassion which has directed that such as these shall not starve - and you applaud, you feel a sense of relief for the responsibility is ever great.

"But have you ever thought, dear children, that when this physical life is over there is the Law in operation that man must work or starve? It is useless then to try devious means to circumvent the Law of the Spirit spheres, it is useless then to borrow the ideas and the work of others; for God's Law is that each man, each woman, have their own foundation alone to stand upon. And while I speak thus I want you to realise that there are always those who are the genuine article in physical life and those who copy, those who imitate - not the sacrifices of others but the results.

"Again I remind you that this is impossible after the transition. Man is ordained by God to be the originator of his own home, to be a creator of his own equipment; and although - as I have explained - there is borrowing in the Spirit World, everyone knows that it is borrowing, and no one can retain that which has been borrowed and claim it as his own. You see the difference?

"I beg you to exercise the physical mind to the uttermost, to get these things in their right proportion, not to take up the holy Book and then put it down with a sigh because it seems that God is not that God of justice you hoped to find.

"Always remember that the chroniclers – wonderful though the work they accomplished – knew so little in comparison with the great truths the Master sought to pass on to waiting man. But had man searched and suffered over the generations to find the Truth, not one of those mistakes could have remained, for within man there is power and truth, and through the Holy Spirit those tiny discrepancies would have been swept away, and man could have gained his emancipation from the limitations of the human mind.

"Yes, God's wages to man are the same everywhere and for everyone, but when we are in the Spirit World, there is one fundamental that makes all the difference between our happiness and our distress, between our activity or having to stand back and see others do what we desire to do, and that one thing is Experience.

"What today can be produced without the gift of experience? It segregates man from man, for those who are untrained, those who are undisciplined, cannot be trusted with important work. But when you are free from the body, how your heart will rejoice over the struggles of daily life, over the combats with pain, over the heartaches which were so hard to resist. Dear children, you have the gift of Eternal Life; but when you enter the next state you have also something which makes the thought of Eternal Life an everlasting glory - you have training, you see the working out of the law that as a man sows and suffers, so he gathers around him the tools to create in conditions where physical things no longer have an existence.

"I want to comfort you, I want to enlarge your vision. When you find on either side such terrible illustrations of injustice, of whole families suffering from the selfishness of one, of little children being born into this physical world in such distorted bodies that there is no chance of earthly happiness at all - when you think of such things, remember Divine Law, God's wages, and all that man can earn by man bringing his will into harmony with the Will of the Father.

"It is the only way, dear children. Many in the body who are inexperienced think that they can teach those who have been in the work for years. When they are tested they find they must produce the same will, the same endurance and the same high faith. Blessed are the triers, blessed are they who are not discouraged by the obstacles upon the path; blessed are the ones who are content to be as pupils until they have mastered those difficulties which must be grappled with and overcome.

"It is the way into the Kingdom - not into Everlasting Life bereft of Divine gifts which should have gained the right of expression - but into the Spirit World knowing that God or Christ will be able to set you to work anew, for in your little way, with the equipment at hand, you have done what you could.

"I would come amongst you to bless you. I ask those who have gathered in to realise that the holy ones can be drawn to them by the desire to release the Holiness within. Dear children, no one is favoured, no one has preferential treatment; that is of the earth alone. God has called you into His Vineyard. If you have had the strength to work over the years, rejoice, for not only do you have the wages that every child of God shall receive, but you have something that you have bought by your own individual effort, and that is Experience. No longer are you a servant in the sense that you cannot be entrusted with important work; you are a missionary, you can represent the Master as an ambassador if you have purchased, by the only way it can be purchased, the gift of experience.

"I ask you as you take your daily way to seek to analyse the words of the Christ, to bring to bear upon them the Light of His Everlasting Love, when all these things shall be made clear, and you shall be the one to bring Light to those who sit in darkness and under the shadow of death."...

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